The following winter bought about lots of change at school and I put to the new headteacher an idea I had to do something with the rest of the front area of the school and if it would be ok to have an afterschool gardening club. She agreed whole heartedly.
I will always be grateful for her support and encouragement because ideas are just ideas unless someone believes in you enough to make those ideas come to life.
Suddenly what had started out as a bug bear was turning into a real project!
I had no budget, no real idea what to do next and if anyone would want to help me!
Then fate lent a little hand in the form of a slow puncture. Yes you read right. A slow puncture.
So there I was standing by the entrance watching my little car have her wheel replaced and as I look to my left, there it was, the next project. After explaining what I had in mind, the man at the tyre place was happy to give us as many used tyres as we needed. Now all I needed was to get them back to school and get them cleaned!
The question was could I do this on my own? This I doubted very much, but to my surprise when I mentioned this to a few mum's they enthusiastically offered to help.
So, half term arrived and so did the tyres and decking and shingle and paint and bricks and pallets and lots of other stuff!!!! And so did a small army of children and their parents and what fun we had. Well, the kids had far more fun than the parents to be fair.
And that's where the tyre planters came to life.
What did I learn that day? If you tell children to get messy, to make mess, they seem to be quite cautious to actually do it. Once they get going - they are brilliant tyre washers. So now I have clean tyres and dirty children, happy, dirty children I should point out.
After trailing Pinterest for hours the once grubby plain tyres where transformed.
So how much did these cost? A project no matter how big or small is always about the cost.
Tyres - FREE. Thank you Loughton Tyres, Langston Road, Loughton, IG10. http;//www.loughtontyresltd.co.uk
Paint - FREE. Thank you Wickes, Langston Road, Loughton IG10 3TQ. Thank you Feraz and Kerrie.
Soil - FREE. Thank you Epping Building Supplied.
And finally the plants - FREE. Thank you to Trish the community champion at Tesco, Southend Road and to David at Wyevale, Enfield. http;//wyevalegardencentres.co.uk Enfield Branch.
Total cost - NIL
Total impact - 100% - the children love them.
They are sought after areas to be looked after by the gardening club members and make for a very inviting entrance to the school gardens.
Of course the question was, what next?
You can follow us on twitter @Thewellywizards - A school gardening group on an epic adventure.
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